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| President always takes a traditional pic when his new assistant is called |
Never would have thought I'd spend the last four and a half months of the mission planning but that's life! Either we are planning for our investigators, planning with other missionaries for their investigators, teaching planning, or planning with president for the mission! It's crazy.
By the way, we have no teaching pool which is a unique experience. This transfer we are so busy with prepping for 2017 that it's just no our focus. But despite that, we do have an investigator that wants to get baptized in November. We found her through a Haitian member. Eunise is so awesome!
All is well!
From photos of journal pages (remember this means there could be translating errors)
October 23, 2016
We finally finished a rough draft of transfer planning after three grueling days in the office. No work in the mission beats me like transfer planning, and this one was bad. President said it’s been the most difficult transfer planning his whole mission.
After the first day, we came pretty close to completing a draft, but then the next morning President told us to wipe the whole thing and start over. He asked us, “Did you get any impressions last night?” Well I personally had been sleeping “last night”, and my companions didn’t have any more enlightenment than I. President then explained that he had woken up at 4:00 a.m. because the Lord told him that we needed to be less emotional about the planning, and it was all wrong.
In retrospect, I saw slight promptings during planning and feeling it wasn’t quite right, but it was so subtle I ignored it. It was a valuable lesson learned, and as we let the Lord guide us more, the difference in feeling was marked.
October 20, 2016
We went on exchanges with the Far Rockaway missionaries and had a very tender experience. We normally only exchange with zone leaders, and that’s enough to keep our hands full; but we felt impressed a couple of weeks ago to exchange in Far Rockaway. We were especially helping and interested in helping Elder McConkie. We’d put him in an extremely heavy position – district leading a large and struggling district of young missionaries in a struggling, high stress area with a struggling unit where he is the branch clerk, and this is only his fifth transfer. But we did it because we knew he was the only missionary that could. The exchange turned out to be so inspired.
November 10-2016
The missionary department just switched zone conference and interviews to every transfer! Crazy. So we just finished with day on of conferences. It went well. I really felt the Spirit during the music. After all our planning, we end up just winging most things, it seems, but the Lord provides! It’s so true. How I love this gospel.
Had a rather unorthodox visit with Eunise tonight. We were technically supposed to be there to help Alex with his resume, but of course we started talking with Eunise and ended up teaching quite a bit while I was typing away. She is so wonderful! She is so excited to get baptized this month. She has a wonderful testimony and such a sweet spirit. We love her a lot.
November 11, 2016
Zone conferences went very well in Flushing. It was the first meeting in the new stake center. The building is gorgeous – and massive! It’s almost more like the Manhattan temple than a church. It’s truly remarkable, and a sign of the work rolling forward here.
I really felt the Spirit today as I listened to the music and taught once again. The last two zone conferences, President has tried just having us three teach most of it in breakout groups instead of meeting together, and the missionaries love it. I’ve grown to love small “interact to edify” settings as I feel more and more confident the Lord guides my comments and questions. The Spirit has been teaching more this transfer than before.
Had a wonderful visit with Fernando Corz(sp?) today. Felt the Spirit so strong. I become more and more convinced that questions are the way to teach. We just wanted to get a referral, but because our approach was nothing more than inspired questions, we not only got that referral, but also resolved Fernando’s needs and he brought up by himself that he wanted to talk with Bishop this week. Huge progress.
November 13, 2016
Church was phenomenal today. It was the Primary Program, and it was so good! It had us laughing so hard and then feeling the Spirit incredibly strongly. Eunise couldn’t come, but her husband Alex did. I think that family will be baptized by the new year.
I’ve received the official delegation of “2017 mission video making man” Its pretty prestigious. So that is taking up a fair bit of time, but it’s coming along nicely. Who would have thought I’d learn so much about technology on the mission.
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| We happened to be taking a Macedonia bound Elder to the UN on Election Day right by a nice little trump tower |
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